Black Chocolate Cake

We spend about half our time in our home in Idaho and half the time in Southern California. Our family is Southern California and our work is also there so it has been a little hard to make the transition to a full time life in Idaho.

When we come to Idaho I tend to do a lot of baking, I’m not sure why. It could just be the weather, being out in the country, the relaxing time.

I’m always looking for new recipes and some I can make fairly quickly and come out good and others are just a blah! I’ll tell you more about my cinnamon roll fiasco I had during the past holidays.

I don’t have all my baking tools here, most of my baking tools are in Southern California. Here in Idaho I have a very small hand mixer that I love to hate, it makes such a big mess when mixing flours or any powdery ingredient.

Anyways, getting back to the recipe I’m going to share, I was a little bored with work and my boyfriend knows me well and challenged me to back a Black Chocolate Cake he saw in a magazine. Oh boy! Was it challenging! I wanted to share the recipe here in my blog because if you want to bake a challenging cake recipe this one is for you. This recipe is from the Food Network Magazine, it doesn’t have an author so I can’t give credit to the person who originally created it. I do want to point out that I made a few adjustments to the recipe and I have some tips I would like to share that were not in the recipe that would had been helpful.

Tip 1: Start with the Frosting! Yes, you read that right. This recipe calls for the icing to rest in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours. I which I knew that because I did the cake first and then the icing and had to wait a very long time for the icing to chill. While the icing is chilling you can make the cake batter, bake it and let it cool off.

Tip 2: As I mentioned above, I adjusted the recipe a little bit. I always add less sugar and butter than what it calls for and I can say the flavor was amazing. For the cake itself I used Monkfruit sugar instead of the white granulated sugar so it cut the calories by a lot. You can certainly use regular sugar if you want for the cake but since I’ve been doing low carb and low sugar lifestyle I don’t really like the flavor or regular sugar as much.

For the frosting I only used 2 sticks of unsalted butter instead of 2 ½ sticks. The icing came out perfect and I had so much leftover that I froze the remaining for next time. Maybe I’ll make some cupcakes and use that icing. I also cut the sugar to 1 cup of regular white sugar from 1 ½ cups. The only reason I used regular sugar for the icing was because I ran out of Monk Fruit and where we live going to the store to get groceries is not as easy.

Kitchen tools you need:

Electric mixer
Small and medium mixing bowls
Measuring cups & spoons
Saucepan
Spatula
Two 9-inch round cake pans
Cooling rack

If you want it sweeter and with more butter read the tips above to see the measurements called on the magazine. Make sure you do the frosting first as it will need to chill for 3 hours in the fridge.

Black Chocolate Cake

Recipe by CarolCourse: DessertsDifficulty: Difficult

Servings

12

servings

Prep time

1

hour 

30

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

This is definitely a very time consuming recipe, I probably make this cake only once a year even though it tastes so good.

Ingredients
Frosting Ingredients

• 3 large room temperature eggs

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk

• 1 cup sugar

• 3/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder

• 3 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 2 ounces of semisweet chocolate (ingredient will be used in final Frosting Direction)

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature ((ingredient will be used in final Frosting Direction)

• Cake Ingredients

• 3 eggs room temperature

• 1/2 cup vegetable or coconut oil, plus more for the pans

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pans

• 1 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 3/4 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules

• 1 1/2 cup boiling water

• 3/4 cup sour cream

• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

• 2 cups sugar

Directions
Frosting Directions

• Whisk the eggs, ¼ cup milk, sugar, cocoa powder cornstarch and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. The mixture will be thick
• Heat the remaining 1 ¼ cups milk in a saucepan over medium heat until just steaming
• Gradually whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture, then pour the entire mixture back in the pan. Bring to a boil, whisking. The mixture will become think like pudding very quickly. Continue cooking for 30 to 60 seconds to thicken further and continue to whisk vigorously
• Remove the pan from the heat, pour the mixture back to the mixing bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface. Refrigerate until cold 3-4 hours
• Cake Directions
• Preheat over at 350 F.
• Brush the bottoms and sides of the two 9-inch round cake pans with vegetable oil and dust flour, tapping the out the excess
• In a small bowl combine the hot water with the semisweet chocolate and instant coffee. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Combine the sour cream, vegetable oil and vanilla to mixture. It will look curdled
• In a medium size bowl whisk the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and baking powder
• Beat the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl on medium speed until combined. Increase speed to medium high and beat until light and fluffy, 4 – 5 minutes
• Reduce the mixer speed to slow and add the coffee/sour cream mixture and mix until combined
• Begin adding the flour mixture in three batches, keep the mixer running in slow until all three batches have been poured. Increase the speed to medium briefly to beat out the lumps. The batter should look like hot fudge
• Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake for 35-45 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the center of the cake to check if the cake is fully cooked, toothpick needs to come out clean
• Let the cakes cool of for 15 minutes in the pan, then run a knife around the edges and remove the cakes to a rack to cool off completely
• Frosting Continuation
• ake out the frosting mixture out of the refrigerator after it has been chilled for 3-4 hours
• Put the semisweet chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30-second intervals until melted, set aside and let cool slightly
• Beat the butter in a medium size bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed until light and creamy, 3- 5 minutes
• Stir the cocoa frosting mixture to loosen, then gradually begin adding the mixture to the butter and continue to mix it until is all combined
• Rim off the domed tops of the cake with a serrated knife
• Put one cake layer on a platter and spread 1 cup frosting on top, then top the other cake layer. Spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the cake
• Refrigerate 1 hour before serving

Notes

• Place any remaining cake in an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator. It will be good for about 5 to 7 days. Remove cake from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature before serving.
• You can freeze the cake for up to a year. Thaw it out before serving

Enjoy!
XO, Carol